" 'We are sorry to hear about what happened to CBS' Julie Chen in 1995 when she was a reporter at WDTN-TV,' Joe Abouzeid, WDTN and WBDT president and general manager said in a statement. 'The station was under different management and ownership during that time. At WDTN and WBDT, we don't tolerate racism or discrimination of any kind.'

"WDTN is now owned by LIN Media. It was owned by the Hearst Corporation when Chen worked there. . . ."

What might be most notable about Abouzeid's statement is that he labeled the news director's comments racist.

" 'It is cold out in the field. I wanted to try to get a seat on the anchor desk so I asked my news director "you know holidays, anchors want to take vacation could I fill in. You know, I don't care, I will work Christmas." He said "you will never be on this anchor desk because you are Chinese." And he said "let's face it, Julie, how relatable are you to our community? How big of an Asian community do we really have here in Dayton? Our audience can't relate to you because you are not like them,' Chen, 43, recalled on the talk show.

"A high-powered agent echoed many [of the news] manager's views and Chen ultimately elected to get a 'double eyelid surgery.' The cosmetic procedure reshapes the skin around the eye so that the eye looks more Western. . . ."

" 'And this agent — he represented the most famous Asian broadcaster out there at the time — you know who I'm talking about and I'm not going to say names.

" 'So, this divided my family. Eventually, my mom said, "You wouldn't have brought this up to me unless this was something that you wanted to do." And they told me that they'd support me, and they'd pay for it, and that they'd be there for me.' "

"They talk about Chen's procedure as if hooded eyes equal Asian, and eyelid surgery equals becoming white, or American. In reality, this operation, called 'double eyelid surgery' by many — or blepharoplasty, if you want to get technical — is really common amongst Asian Americans. And it's practically a requirement to become a model or actress in certain parts of Asia, like last spring's South Korean beauty contest controversy showed." Photos of the contestants prompted claims that cosmetic procedures left all of them looking the same. "I think the preference for larger, rounder eyes is something that's been internalized in Asia after a long history of European colonialization.

"And many Asians, like me, are born with folded lids. I was reminded often as a child how lucky I was to have my mother's eyes. But just like you can never be too rich or too thin, I still envied the girls with rounder, deeper-set eyes. And believe me, I was still reminded constantly that I was Asian, and thus, not American enough. . . ."

Chen's revelation quickly became the talk of social media. "She had the works done, nose, eyes, etc. and boobs too probably. But she sold out big time — very sad, but like she said, it got her to where she is and married to the big boss...whoop-de-do good for her (sad)," said one commenter on Facebook, referring to Chen's marriage to CBS President and CEO Les Moonves.

"She made herself racially ambiguous," said another.

"she's from a culture that rewards looks and money, and doesn't look beyond skin deep, sadly. i know — a grew up in this culture and it sucks. brainy, loud, taller than most of the guys — not good; looks and money and no principles = trophy wife. spare me," said a third.

The Asian American Journalists Association applauded Chen's disclosure for putting Asian American issues in the public dialogue.

"AAJA applauds Ms. Chen for sharing this personal moment with her audience," began a statement from Paul Cheung, AAJA national president, and Niala Boodhoo, AAJA vice president, broadcast. "Her story chronicles some of the daily struggles Asian Americans face in the workplace across all industries, not just in broadcast journalism.

"Asian Americans are one of the fastest growing minority groups in the country. But Asian Americans issues are still rarely covered. Similarly, few newsrooms reflect this diversity among their staff.

"AAJA was founded more than three decades ago because of this problem. Ms. Chen's story is an all-too real reminder of how crucial our mission remains today."

Phil Yu, creator of the blog "Angry Asian Man," wrote, "Chen says she wondered, 'Did I give into The Man?' Yes, Julie. You kind of did. But I appreciate the opportunity for a frank conversation about the things we give up and how we deny our identities, to feel more accepted. It sucks that you did that, but it sucks even more that we live in a world that practically cheered it on. . . ."

Other ethnic groups live in that same world and have also faced the problem of not looking "American enough."

As Underwood's comments illustrate, black women confront it in deciding whether to chemically straighten their hair. Last year meterologist Rhonda Lee was fired from her ABC affiliate in Shreveport, La., after she responded to a racial remark posted by a viewer on the station's Facebook page in reference to her short Afro hairstyle. The station insisted that the issue was Lee's defiance of station rules about responding to viewers, but many saw it as grounded in Lee's hairstyle choice.

As for Native Americans, "historically Natives have faced immense pressure by mainstream society to change their personal appearance and abandon their cultural identities, starting with the boarding school era when so many children were forced to cut their hair or change their names," Mary Hudetz, president of the Native American Journalists Association, messaged Journal-isms.

"To some degree, these challenges still continue today. It's not uncommon for some professionals to be asked to cut their long hair or cover traditional tattoos in the workplace, or at least sense that there might be an unspoken expectation to do so," Hudetz continued. "This by no means has been my experience, but has been a reality for some.

"And I think it's clear that none of the efforts of the past carried a lasting impact. You've seen that within our NAJA membership, we all are very proud of our cultures."

Lee's name has been invoked in the reaction to Julie Chen's disclosure that she had plastic surgery on her eyes 18 years ago. Lee told Journal-isms Friday that she is a new mother, having given birth in Shreveport, La., on Thursday to Louis Charles Johnson.

"Over the last several months I have pretty much taking it easy trying to make sure I had a healthy baby despite all the stress that came along with being pregnant and fired from my job," Lee messaged Journal-isms. "It has been tough finding another job. Some people do recognize me from the publicity. I don't know if that has helped or not, it's hard to say. But I still keep my options open.

"I would love to have a job early next year, so I'm definitely still looking. My website is www.heyweatherlady.wix.com/rhondalee. I still do lots of speaking engagements promoting people being accepted for who they are and less on what they look like. Between Julie Chen and Sheryl Underwood having issues concerning appearance and ethnicity it has been a busy week for women of color in a visual medium. I know my name has come up several times. If we can parlay the bad into a better future then I'm all for it."

Blacks and Latinos are more optimistic than whites are about the economy, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center taken "five years after the U.S. economy faced its most serious crisis since the Great Depression."

But in a racial breakdown provided to Journal-isms, black and Latino respondents were more optimistic than were whites.

Only 43 percent of the total approved of the way President Obama was handling the economy, for example. However, 83 percent of non-Hispanic blacks did, compared with 60 percent of Hispanics and 31 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

Asked whether they expect the economy to be better a year from now, 28 percent of the total said better. But the figures for blacks and Hispanics were each 46 percent, compared with 22 percent for whites.

For all groups, "the job situation" was first among national economic issues that worried them most, compared with the condition of the financial and housing markets, the federal budget deficit and rising prices. However, 58 percent of non-Hispanic blacks chose "the job situation," compared with 42 percent of Hispanics and 38 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

"In crafting that history, the three authors interviewed 61 media movers and shakers from the past three decades. Of those 61, five were (white) women, two were men of color, and zero were women of color.

"To the many people who spent the next few days skewering the report's omissions and offering up innovative women and people of color that were excluded, Riptide doesn't come close to telling the whole story of how journalism and tech innovated and intertwined. So a couple of those critics decided to conduct their own complementary study.

"Jeanne Brooks, the digital director of the Online News Association, and Sabrina Hersi Issa, a media entrepreneur and Roosevelt Institute Pipeline fellow, are searching for funding to create a report that includes a full, diverse spectrum of change-makers in digital journalism. They hope to compile and launch it next year.

" 'Everyone was asking me who should be on the list,' Brooks said. 'But it takes a lot of work and it takes time out of your day just to do that research. And I've been pushing back to say, these men got their research supported… I don't want to do this work for free.'

"Brooks added that getting the journalism world at large engaged in addressing diversity is a struggle. In her three years with ONA, she said, association panels and speeches addressing the issue have been sparsely attended. By way of example, Brooks mentioned ONA’s 2011 conference, where one of the keynotes was about … the history of women and people of color in digital journalism. The speech was well-attended, she said. But for the following work session, on meaningfully integrating diversity into newsrooms, 'there was no more than 10 people in this giant ballroom.' . . ."

"That's the reality zealous defenders of the name ignore. As time passes, people won't become numb to the offensive nature of the name. Instead, more people will wake up to the reality that a word that would never be used as anything other than the name of a football team shouldn't be used as the name of a football team, either.

"This is just incredible. Knowing the lack of competence that's there with Thayer Evans, knowing the level of simplemindedness that's there with Thayer Evans, to base any part of the story on his reporting is mind-boggling.

" … Let me end by saying this and I honestly mean this without malice. It wouldn't shock me if Thayer Evans couldn't spell cat and I say in all seriousness.”

"The 'PBS NewsHour' correspondent is the author of 'Latino Americans: The 500 Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation,' a rich tapestry of stories on the impact Latinos had in helping to forge this country.

"But it's also a part of American history students rarely, if ever, learn in class, Suarez says.

"Released Sept. 3 in anticipation of Hispanic Heritage Month, the book serves as a companion to the three-part, six-hour documentary of the same name premiering Sept. 17 on PBS.

" 'I think this series and this book both propose themselves to be the beginning of a redefinition,' says Suarez of how history is taught in American schools.

" 'As the number of Latinos and the percentage grows in America, that redefinition is going to be a long-term work in progress. I don't think it will make any sense to learn history the way we've learned it in the past.'

"The five century-long story begins with the first Latino, born just after the arrival of Columbus, and ends in present times with the more than 50 million Latinos living in the U.S. today.

" 'This story is different from other conventional histories you may have read,' the book begins. . . ."

"The goal of the grant is to increase diversity in media staffing and coverage of social justice issues through training, education, recruitment programs and scholarships to NABJ’s Annual Convention and Career Fair.

"The grant is part of the Ford Foundation's Media and Justice Initiative, which seeks to increase and improve news coverage of issues of inequity, injustice and disparity that are often ignored by the mainstream media.

"This grant will help in the development and implementation of NABJ C.A.R.E.S., a members-only web portal that will offer job search, continuing education, training and networking opportunities for members entering or returning to the workforce. . . ."

As previously reported, Unity: Journalists for Diversity received $150,000 in August "to undertake a broad national effort to expand and strengthen a coalition of diverse journalists' associations to advance diversity and inclusion in media coverage, staffing and ownership through a series of meetings, conferences, and training sessions."

Also in August, Univision News won a one-year, $500,000 grant from the foundation to strengthen and expand its Documentary and Investigative units.

The same month, the Asian American Journalists Association was awarded $200,000 to launch "Diverse and Inclusive: News of the Heartland," a project to address the lack of news coverage of minorities and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities in Nebraska.

"An illustrative example: I was in South Sudan in November 2012, on a trip I was financing myself. Weeks in flea-ridden hostels culminated in a four-day stay at a refugee camp near the border with Sudan. I was the only reporter there and pleased with myself for getting a story that no one else had. Not so fast. On my last day there, a small plane descended unannounced on the tiny airstrip and disgorged four foreign correspondents in their khakis and combat boots. They represented two of the biggest and best-known international media outlets. They spent a total of two hours in the camp. One of them had filed his story even before he left.

"As they hijacked my interviews, I chatted to their fixer who whispered to me that they had spent $8,000 to hire the plane for the morning. To me, this was an unimaginable sum: their morning cost more than four times my entire two weeks in South Sudan. And, of course, they missed the story. In four days I barely scratched the surface of what was going on in the camp, but in their two hours, they could not even get beyond official statements.

"For aid workers and the camp's refugee leadership, this was a common complaint: journalists, invariably foreign, screeched in for a few hours and got the story wrong.

"This echoes a common lament among African journalists, politicians, policy-makers and civil society activists, which goes something like this: one of Africa's biggest problems is that it is not allowed to tell its own stories. The agenda for African news is decided in far-off Western capitals — London, Paris, New York — and written by dashing foreign correspondents who do not understand the local complexities and base their narrative on sweeping, misleading generalisations. Sometimes the reports are wrong or distorted. Sometimes their depictions and analysis are borderline racist. (Sometimes, foreign reporting on Africa is excellent; but in general it is hit and miss.) The broader point remains that Africa is not setting its own news agenda.

"The end result is that Africa continues to be defined by stereotypes: it is poor; it is conflict-ridden; it is starving and dangerous. It is the helpless continent, or — if those invariably white editors are in a good mood — it is 'Africa rising', the positive generalisations just as sweeping as all the negative ones which came before. . . ."

"ASNE was thrilled to hold four Minority Leadership Institutes in the past year," the American Society of News Editors told members on Friday. "We trained more than 60 middle-managers through partnership at a variety of conventions," including Unity in Las Vegas; ASNE in Washington; the National Association of Black Journalists in Orlando, Fla.; and Excellence in Journalism in Anaheim, Calif., which included the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and the Radio Television Digital News Association. The announcement added, "We hope to expand and create new partnerships in 2014."

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai told the inaugural forum of the newly formed LGBT Technology Partnership Thursday that promoting broadband would benefit the LGBT community "by making it easier to connect, easier to learn, and easier to engage in self-expression," John Eggerton reported for Broadcasting & Cable. "Pai said that gay teens spend more time online than straight teens, and are more likely to search the Internet for health information." Eggerton also wrote, "Pai, who is Indian-American, talked about often being the only minority in his classrooms growing up in Parsons, Kan. He said he never felt discriminated against. 'But I did sense at an early age what it was like to feel different — to walk into a room aware that I was the only person like me. . . . "

"Ex-jock talking heads aside, the nation's sports pages remain overwhelmingly white. That's probably why you're only vaguely aware that for many of us, tomorrow night is the one of the biggest sporting events of the year," Gautham Nagesh wrote Friday for NPR. "On Saturday night, boxing's biggest star, Floyd Mayweather Jr., will meet unbeaten Mexican sensation Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas for the junior middleweight championship of the world." Nagesh also wrote, "Hype aside, Saturday's fight is unique among American sporting events in that the majority of those watching on fight night, whether in person or via Pay Per View, will be minorities, specifically African- Americans or Hispanics. . . ."

Announcing from Red Bank, N.J., the Thomas Fortune Project said Wednesday, "The committee working to preserve the home of former slave and noted journalist T. Thomas Fortune will host its first fundraiser on Oct. 3, the actual birthday of the human rights activist, from 6 - 9 p.m. at the Celestial Lodge located at 141 Drs. James Parker Blvd. The cost is $20." The group has set up a Facebook page.

"Twenty four years ago, journalist Yvette Walker became one half of an interracial marriage," Kristen Hare wrote Thursday for the Poynter Institute. "Her everyday experiences, like finding a cake topper that reflected the bride and groom, eventually led to the launch of New People Interracial Magazine, which ran from 1989 to 1995 in print and online until 2003. Now, it's back on Facebook with nearly as many likes — 384, as this post was published — as the printed magazine’s former circulation. . . ."